CSI: Grissom's Kissmet
by A Rhea King
Summary: When an old case of Grissom's comes back to haunt the team, it may cost Russell's life before the team can find enough evidence to solve it.
1. Chapter 1

**CSI: Crime Scene Investigators**  
><strong>Grissom's Kismet<strong>

By A. Rhea King

_Chapter 1_

There was nothing exceptional about the night of July 8th, except for a forecast of seven to fourteen days straight of above one hundred temperatures. Of course, D.B. knew that heat waves like that often did bring out the citizen's tempers, which meant that sooner or later it was going to become very busy.

He thought for a moment about that as the elevator lifted him up to the lab. With a soft ding, the doors opened and he walked off. As he passed through the reception area, he gave a nod to the officer behind the front desk. The man returned it with friendly smile and quiet 'hello.'

D.B. turned into the hall, passing the work board. He glanced at it, feeling content with the number of cases which had 'solved' written across them.

He turned into his office and sat his satchel on his desk as he walked around behind it. He was about to take off his jacket when Greg ran up to the door and stopped. D.B. could tell he needed him for something.

"Come back in five minutes."

"Actually, I can't… do… that…" Greg trailed off.

_What has he done?_ "What do you need, Greg?"

Greg smiled apologetically, and continued. "I've been waiting for you. There's a triple death in Summerlin and I'm the last CSI here."

"Where is everyone else?"

"Someone has been calling prank crime scenes in all day and day shift got swamped, so they had a bunch of calls left when Nick got in. He agreed we could take them, before we also got hit with a bunch of calls about crime scenes. So he delegated for you, doled out the calls among us, and the others are on those calls. He gave me some too, but the cops at this crime scene have been there all day and they are probably going to be really… _Uncooperative?_"

D.B. smiled at the real reason Greg wanted him to go. "So really you want me to go to deal with the fire-breathing police officers?"

"Yes?"

"I'll meet you out front."

"Thanks." Greg hurried off.

D.B. sighed. So the nightmare week began…

* * *

><p>The house in the Summerlin suburb was a modest ranch-style. Three police cars were parked in front of the house, each with an officers leaning against the car. Greg stopped the CSI SUV behind their cars and all three officers turned their heads to glare at the CSI.<p>

"Well, this ought to be fun," D.B. quietly said, careful not to let them see his lips move. "I'll do the talking, you hang back."

"Gladly," Greg replied.

The two CSI climbed out of the SUV.

"It is about God damned time!" one of the men, Officer Courtney, bellowed as the two climbed out. "Where in the hell have you two fucking been?!"

"It was a busy day shift that overflowed into the night shift," D.B. calmly explained.

"We've been here since one this afternoon!" another growled at the two, "Hell, the ME has already been here and taken the bodies. What the hell!?"

"I am very sorry you fellas had to wait so long. This is not a normal day for us and there are days we're just as strapped as you guys are. Please, accept our apologies."

That seemed to cool the men's temper a little.

"The house was cleared hours ago," Officer Courtney told D.B., and then told the other two officers, "You two go on home. I'll wait for them."

"We can wait," the third officer offered.

"Naw. No sense in all of us losing sleep tonight."

With a cordial exchange of 'good night,' the other two left.

"Thank you for staying. We'll be as quick as we can so you can get home too," D.B told the officer.

He nodded but he didn't look any happier. The two CSI headed for the front door. Both retrieved their flashlights from their vests as they entered the dark house. The raunchy scent of decay hit them first.

"How long have were the bodies here?" D.B. asked.

"I'm sorry, D.B., I don't know much about this one. Like you told those guys, this was from day. It was shoved in my hand as Nick left to cover two others and one that had just came in."

"Nick…" D.B. shook his head. "Some people do too much work because their part insane and part workaholic."

Greg chuckled. "Best description of Nick in less than 140 characters."

The two began searching the house with just flashlights. They found where the bodies had been. The area had three markers left by the M.E. The rug had some blood stains, bits of flesh, and brain matter.

"There isn't much blood," Greg commented.

D.B. crouched down and shined his light closer. "And you don't know how long the bodies were here?"

"No. Why? What do you see?"

"Not only is there not much blood, but these flecks are completely dry."

"Not the primary."

"No. Not the primary." D.B. stood and they kept walking.

The two came into the kitchen and both heard footsteps somewhere in the house. They glanced at each other.

"Hello?" D.B. called out.

He waited but there was no answer.

At the back of the house they heard a toilet flush. D.B.'s lips tightened with anger. Greg looked at the ceiling.

"_I am going to_ _have his badge!_" D.B. snarled as he stormed away.

Greg went back to processing the kitchen. He didn't want to be anywhere near when D.B. handed the officer his head for using the toilet at a crime scene.

#

D.B. stormed down the hall toward the sound of the toilet bowl refilling. It was coming from the dark master bedroom. In passing he noticed the room had a sliding door that opened into the backyard, and was standing open – likely how the officer had gotten to the restroom unnoticed. A sliver of light shone from under the closed door, reflecting on the polished wood floor of the bedroom.

D.B. stopped at the door and pounded on it with his fist. "Open this door!" he bellowed.

There was no reply.

"Hey! Get out here. We have to have a _chat_!" D.B. demanded.

Something cold pressed against the back of his neck, followed by a man telling him, "Very slowly put your sidearm down on the floor." And then he heard the hammer of a gun click.

D.B. realized in that second that whoever this was had used the bathroom to lure him into the room by himself.

"Do it now," the man ordered.

D.B. slowly pulled the safety strap off, withdrew his gun from the holster, and sat it on the floor.

"Cell phone."

He obeyed.

"Take off your vest and put it on the floor with your wallet. Make sure they can see your name when they come in here."

"What do you want?" D.B. asked.

The cold end of the gun pressed harder into his neck.

"Do not speak."

He obeyed the man's order.

"Now, we're going out the door, without one word, or any attempt to do anything I would be happy to shoot you for."

D.B. did as he was told. They crossed the backyard to a six foot privacy fence. The two went through the open gate into the alley. A dark colored car with an open trunk waited for them.

"Get in the trunk."

"Tell me what you want."

"Did I tell you to speak?" The gun was pressed against his neck again. "Or should I just shoot you now?"

"I just…" D.B. stopped when the gun moved up to the base of his skull.

Slowly he climbed into the trunk and laid down. He looked up at the man, finding he wore a mask. The man shut the trunk lid, closing D.B. in dark.

He heard footsteps go around the car. The car door shut and the engine roared to life. The car lurched forward, forcing D.B. to brace himself. The man made a sharp right, again forcing him to brace himself, and then sped up.

_'Why did he kidnap me?'_ repeated through D.B.'s mind.

* * *

><p>Common for him, Greg's focused in processing the area of the bodies had made him lose track of the hour that D.B. didn't return. He remembered he had left when he heard footsteps come up behind him.<p>

"That was the quietest lecture I've ever heard you give," Greg joked.

"What?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

Greg turned, finding Officer Courtney, the alleged lectured officer, standing behind him.

"Why… Are you still here?" Greg asked.

"Because you two still are. How much longer is this going to take? I have a 6 A.M. shift and it's already one."

"One?" Greg looked at his watch. "It's been an hour?"

"Yeah. So… How much longer?"

"D.B. went to the back to talk to you."

"Who's D.B.? And about what?"

_Great. A new guy._ Greg answered, "The other CSI with me. He left to talk to you about using a bathroom at a crime scene."

"Excuse me! Look, I realize you CSI think we're just stupid cops, but I know better than to use a restroom at a crime scene!"

Greg's stomach dropped. If the officer hadn't been in the bathroom, who had been? And where was D.B.? That unanswered questions left him with an unsettled feeling something very bad had happened to his supervisor.

Greg started to the back of the house, calling, "D.B." with each step.

"What's wrong?" the officer asked.

"Find D.B.!" Greg ordered and then continued calling for his supervisor.

The officer went the other direction to search for D.B. Greg's search brought him to the master bedroom. The light shining under the bathroom door revealed the outline of objects on the floor. Greg walked up and shined his light on D.B.'s Gloc, wallet, vest, and cellphone.

Greg spun around and ran to find the officer.

* * *

><p>D.B. kept track of the ride in his mind, counted turns, and listened for any unique sounds. If he was able to get away, he was also determined to find the kidnapper and throw him in jail for a long, long time.<p>

He heard an echo of the car engine as it entered a cavernous enclosed area. He heard the tires crunch across glass or plastic. The car stopped and the engine cut off. He heard the man walk around to the trunk and with a soft beep, the lid popped opened a couple inches.

"Get out," his kidnapper ordered.

Several turns earlier D.B. discovered there was nothing in the trunk he could use to attack the kidnapper or help him get the upper hand in some way. All he could do was obey for now until he saw an opening of some kind, so he climbed out of the trunk. The only light in the open building they were in came from the car headlights. Through a wide open door D.B. could see the starlit night sky that stretched out for miles. That told him that they were nowhere near Las Vegas.

"Walk." The man motioned the direction to walk.

"What is this about?" D.B. asked.

The gun moved up to D.B.'s face and the man tilted his head. "Please, give me a reason to just kill you. Any reason. I really want you dead."

D.B. turned around and walked. The headlights lit a corner of the building and a ladder. The man motioned D.B. up the ladder. The climb led them to a rickety catwalk. They crossed the building to a permanent ladder that led to a mezzanine. At the top of the ladder the man stopped him and switched on an electric lantern.

There was cot waiting on the other side of the mezzanine, with restraints bolted to the cot's metal frame. Between them there were holes in the floor. A few of the holes still had equipment extending down through them but had been disassembled to prevent the machinery from ever working again. The man pushed him forward, toward the cot. D.B. glanced up, noticing that most of the skylights had been broken out.

"Sit on the cot and put the leg restraints on."

D.B. hesitated. Why had he been brought up here, to the top of a warehouse? This didn't make any sense. Most kidnappers hid their victims where they couldn't be seen or heard.

"Maybe we could talk about—"

"Did I say talk?" the man snapped, pressing the gun against D.B.'s head. "We can do this my way, or your way – but your way ends up with you dead right here and now. Mine _might_ give you a chance to live through this, although I wouldn't get my hopes up, _Grissom._"

_Grissom?_ This man thought he was Gil Grissom? D.B. was torn between revealing he wasn't Grissom and keeping quiet – which was more likely to save his life?

He decided to make sure he'd heard the man correctly before settling on a choice. He almost turned to ask the man, "What did you say?"

"Sit down on the bed and put those restraints around your ankles now, old man." The man shoved him, making D.B. stumble toward the cot.

D.B. slowly sat down and put the leg restraints around his ankles.

"Tighter. You know that's not tight enough. I don't see those socks bunch, it's not tight enough."

He tightened the ankle straps.

"Lay back and put that left restraint around your wrist."

D.B. obeyed.

The kidnapper put the safety on the gun and slid it into his pants waistband. He walked up to the cot and fastened the right restraint around D.B's wrist, tightened the left, and fastened a restraint across D.B.'s chest. He double checked each restraint to make sure they were secure.

"Do you think I'm Grissom?" D.B. quietly asked.

The kidnapper stood and pulled off his mask. He was a young, and probably handsome, man in his late twenties. But at the moment he looked like a mangy homeless young man. He had a full, unkempt, messy beard and matted, greasy, dark hair. He looked sickly and like he hadn't slept much for some time.

"Shut up, asshole," he growled at D.B., and then walked over to a corner.

Now D.B. noticed an I.V. pole with an intravenous regulator pump on it. The man hung four I.V. bags on the pole and worked the tubes through the regulator.

"You called me Grissom. Do you think I'm Gil Grissom?" D.B pressed

"Shut up!"

The man _did_ think he was Grissom. D.B had seen pictures of Grissom and they looked nothing alike, so how could this man mistake him for Grissom. And his vest and I.D. badge clipped to it clearly read 'Russell' – hadn't the man seen that?

"Look, son, I'm not Grissom. My name is D.B. Russell. I don't know you. I don't know what this is about."

"You'd say anything to save your ass, wouldn't you?"

"I am not Gil Grissom. He-He quit almost four years ago. I am not him."

"And I'm the queen of England."

"I am not Gil Grissom!"

The man rolled the pole over to the cot. He sat an overturned crate next to the bed and picked up a bag from under the cot. He sat it on D.B. and pulled out supplies to start an I.V. line.

"What are you doing to me?"

The man didn't answer. D.B. reactively tried to pull away when the man grabbed his arm and tightened a tourniquet around his arm. He grimaced as the man searched his hand for a vein.

"Why do you want Grissom dead?"

"Do you always refer to yourself in third person?"

"I am _not_ Gil Grissom."

"Whatever."

Finding a vein he quickly and expertly inserted the needle and secured it to D.B.'s hand.

"You've done this a few times, haven't you?"

"I was going to be a doctor until you destroyed all that."

"_I am not Gil Grissom_," D.B. stressed.

The man didn't stop his preparations. He connected a line from the regulator to the end of the I.V. cap, opened the regulator, and punched in settings. He snapped the door close and secured it. The man looked down at D.B.

"Did you know that certain painkillers and sedatives speed up dehydration if fluids aren't replaced?" The question was a taunt, letting D.B. know what he had planned for him. "When the pump battery goes dead, you'll wake up, and get to feel what my mother did. I find it strange that there are people who believe dying of dehydration is peaceful and painless – _it isn't._

"I don't know why you're doing this."

"You know why. It was all over the news. You convinced my family that you were the best there was, that they shouldn't pay the ransom because you would find her, and bring her home. You lied and now you get to pay for that lie." The man headed for the ladder back down to the catwalk. "Feel free to scream when you wake up; there isn't anyone around for at least twenty miles. Oh, and _please_ struggle. That will speed things up." He turned to start down the ladder and offered D.B. a sadistic smile. "We're supposed to have high temperatures in the hundreds for seven days straight. The same weather that my mother had to suffer through when your mistake left _her_ to die of dehydration!" He started down the ladder.

D.B. lifted his head to continue arguing about his identity. The room and departing man spun. He tried to keep his eyes open, but that was a fight he knew was lost. He let his head fall back. A roaring white noise deafened him and then a warm sensation ran through his body as his heart pumped a sedative through.

"I'm not…" D.B. muttered, "Gil Grissom."

Then he was asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

Robbins glanced at the door of the morgue when Nick walked in. Nick stopped to look at the three bodies Robbins was working on. Two had recently died, while the third was a leather-skinned mummy. The two recent deaths had their faces brutally beaten in, leaving them beyond recognition.

"Can they help us find him?" Nick asked. In kidnap cases before, Robbins had seen Nick enraged and out for blood. It was strange, and uncomfortable, to see him so calm.

The M.E. shook his head. "No. In fact, these bodies leave more questions than answers. This one…" Robbins walked over to a body that was mummified. "Starts the mystery. A Caucasian female between forty and fifty." Robbins gently lifted one arm. "She was bound for a long time before she died. I pulled some fibers from the wounds and sent them to Hodges. But then things get really strange. She's already had an autopsy and was buried for a while; in her condition, I can't tell if either the autopsy or burial were before or after death."

"Could you get finger prints?"

Robbins held up a hand. The tips of the fingers had been cut off. "No. And her teeth were pulled out. The other two had their fingers burned with acid that removed the prints. They also had their teeth removed, all post-mortem."

"So someone is trying to hide their identities."

"Not the man, they weren't."

"What do you mean?"

"Most of his skull was destroyed from a shotgun blast, and from what I can tell, it appears he pulled the trigger himself."

Nick paused for a moment and his jaw flexed a couple times. Robbins began to suspect the calm was masking Nick's rage. "Oh, this just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

Robbins agreed. "Unfortunately so. The second woman's face was beaten in after the teeth were removed. I also think this other woman committed suicide. Her wrists are slit, in the right direction, and the wounds appear to be self-inflicted."

"Their killer could have forced them to commit suicide."

"That is true, but the fact remains that both killed themselves."

"How long have they been dead?"

"I don't know. They were frozen. So was the mummified female, but she was likely mummified before frozen because there wasn't enough tissue damage. I sent skin and hair samples to Henry; maybe they've been reported missing."

Robbins saw Nick's fire when he growled through gritted teeth, "What the hell did D.B. stumble into?"

"Nothing good, from the looks of things. There was nothing turned up at the house?"

"No," Nick answered as he shook his head. "The house belongs to a couple who are on vacation in Maryland right now. The only person they had coming to the house was a man to mow the lawn twice a week, but the owners said he didn't have access to the house. That lead checked out. We're at a dead end here if Henry doesn't find anything."

Nick's cell phone beeped and he looked at the text message. He ran out of the morgue.

_**Ten minutes earlier…**_

The officer at the front desk looked up when the elevator dinged. He watched a young man walk off and turn toward the desk. It was hard to tell if his all black clothes made him look ill, or if he really was ill. His skin was sallow, his eyes had sunken in their sockets, and he looked like he may be starving but it was hard to tell with his grungy full beard and greasy hair that could only be described as dark.

He stopped a few feet from the desk.

"I need to talk to a CSI," the man said.

"About?"

"A kidnapping."

"You need to report that to the police."

"I need to talk to a CSI."

The officer considered arguing, but picked up his phone and dialed a number instead.

Finlay answered. "Yeah?"

"Someone up here is requesting to speak to a CSI about a kidnapping."

"We don't have time for this."

"He won't call the police."

He heard her sigh. "I'll be right up."

He hung up, looking at the man. He was looking at something in the lab.

"One will be here in a couple minutes."

The young man looked at him. For someone who wanted to report someone kidnapped, the man was unusually calm. That calm set caused the officer's instincts to flash red flags.

"How long has the person been missing?" the officer asked.

"I need to talk to a CSI," the man repeated.

Finlay came into the room. The officer motioned to the man. She stopped in front of him and forced a smile. "CSI Julie Finlay." She extended her hand to him.

The man pulled his hand out of his right pocket, along with a gun. She drew her sidearm, aiming at him. Behind her the officer leapt to his feet, drawing his sidearm and aiming at the man.

"Put down the gun, sir," Finlay ordered.

"My mother was kidnapped seven years ago," the man told her. "When Grissom found the kidnapper, he let him kill himself. And then he couldn't find my mother. She was found six weeks ago by some kids in a barn."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but—"

"I'M TALKING!"

Finlay stopped talking. Part of her desperately wanted to believe that hearing this guy's story was all he needed, but her instincts were not convinced this was going to end in any way good for anyone in the room.

"She was tied to a post and we were told she died from dehydration. Do you have any idea what it's like for someone to die like that?" He waved the gun to make points in his question.

"Yes. I do. But—"

"Don't try pacifying me."

She saw Nick move into the room with his sidearm aimed at the man.

"Hey," Nick said, "why don't you put that gun down, man?"

"Why don't you kiss my ass?" the man snapped at Nick.

"Whatever the problem is, I'm sure we can work it out."

"Oh yeah? You can bring my mom back from the fucking dead? You're that good of a CSI? Better than that asshole Grissom?"

Nick grimaced a little. "No, but—"

"THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP! I'M TALKING TO THIS BITCH!" The man motioned at Finlay with his gun.

Nick didn't try continuing.

"My dad, he couldn't handle the idea of how my mom died," the man told Finlay. "So he put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The stress from dealing with my mom's death and dad's suicide, stressed out my sister and she had a miscarriage. She became so depressed that she took a whole bottle of Ambien and drown in the bathtub. That mother fucker killed my entire family! All of them are dead. All because he couldn't keep the kidnapper from killing himself." The man smirked. "Well, I hope you CSI are better than he was because I left him to die just like my mother."

"Him who?" Finlay asked. "Who did all this?"

Sara came walked through a door behind the man, stopping to block it. She didn't draw her weapon, but she kept her hand on it, ready to react.

"That fucking CSI, Gil Grissom!"

"Grissom is in… What country did you leave Grissom in?"

"Las Vegas, idiot! I took him right out his crime scene, his fucking precious crime scene, and left him for dead. The same way he left my mother!"

"That was not Gil Grissom," Finlay told him. "He wasn't—"

"Time's wasting." The man put the gun to his temple.

"NO!" Finlay yelled at the same time the man pulled the trigger.

The man crumpled to the floor and blood began to pool around the gunshot wound in his head.

"I spoke to Gil this morning; he's still in London," Sara told the other CSI. "What did this guy say he did to him?"

"He thinks…" Finlay trailed off, unable to voice the obvious.

Nick wasn't as silent. "He kidnapped D.B. because he thought he had Grissom."

Sara walked a few steps into the room. "Nick…" She looked over at him, "we're having a heat wave this week. If he left him to die of dehydration we have three, four days tops, to find him."

Nick was aware of that as soon as he realized the kidnapper had mistaken D.B. He turned to Finlay, and found several technicians and Greg standing in the hall behind her. With the clock ticking on D.B.'s life, someone had to take charge – in an instant he decided that would be him. Nick flicked the safety back on his gun and holstered it.

"Greg and Sara, get back to work on the evidence from the house. Triple check everything, make sure you two have missed _nothing_." Nick began, "Finlay, stay with the kidnapper, see if we can figure out where he may have stashed D.B. We have to work fast to find, D.B., people, so get back to your labs. As soon as we get evidence on this case, it takes priority over everything else. Understood?"

The crowd mobilized, obeying their marching orders. Nick turned back to the body, staring at it.

Very quietly Finlay told him, "If he mistook D.B. for Grissom that means this guy had never met Grissom. Even if we find his mother's kidnapping case, chances are we won't have his name. We won't even know where to start looking for D.B., Nick."

"When the time comes to worry about that, we'll worry about it. Right now, I have to start making some phone calls to see if anyone can tell me what case this guy was talking about." Nick left Finlay to wait for the M.E.

But before he began making calls he made a stop in a stairwell. Nick grabbed the stair railing on the landing and leaned on it, letting his fear and panic show. While the situation surrounding D.B.'s kidnapping wasn't exactly like Nick's experience, there were too many similarities. Those similarities drudged up old fears and horrific memories, but somehow that was a good thing. Because there was no way he was going to stop looking for D.B. He was determined to find his supervisor and pull him back to safety, no matter what it took or cost him.

Nick inhaled a deep breath, exhaled, and began making phone calls.

* * *

><p>Nick looked up when a case jacket was dropped by his elbow. Finlay sat down on a stool, staring at him for a few awkward moments.<p>

"The kidnapper burned his own fingerprints off with acid," she began, "and he had teeth removed so there are no dental records."

That made Nick turn a glare on his computer. She looked at it.

"What's are you doing?"

"I'm trying to find a kidnapping case that Grissom was lead on and matches the people we have in the morgue."

"How do you know they were the ones the man was talking about?"

"His mother died seven years ago, in the desert, and the mummified corpse is female. For now, I'm just assuming the two go together."

"Any luck?"

"Like a needle in a stack of needles."

Finlay started to comment but closed her mouth. Nick didn't notice.

"I have a small something," Henry walked into the room, followed by Hodges saying, "I have nothing, Nick."

Nick turned to Hodges first. "You have nothing?"

He shook his head. "The guy not only burned his fingerprints off and removed teeth, but he also purchased brand new clothes so there is no trace, and washed his entire body with bleach water. This guys was determined to keep his identity hidden."

"Henry?"

"I have figured out some of the relations between the kidnapper and the three corpse we have in the morgue. The kidnapper is the son of the mummified woman. The young woman is the daughter of the man and mummified woman, and within the last 7 days she was pregnant. So either they were married or a couple."

"Did she miscarry?" Nick asked.

"Possibly. But when I ran the DNA of the man found at the house, it brought up an arrest report from six weeks ago. He apparently assaulted an officer, was in jail for a few days, but the charges were dropped. He is Devin Nolan."

"Devin Nolan, the millionaire?" Finlay asked.

"Billionaire. Recently a billionaire. But there was something interesting on the arrest report. May I?" He motioned to Nick's computer.

Nick moved out of his way and he pulled up the report. He pointed at the address on the report. "The address where the woman was found is in the desert."

"Maybe it's a vacation home," Hodges suggested.

"No," Nick and Finlay both answered. Finlay added, "That is literally in the middle of nowhere. It's the perfect place to hide someone."

Nick grabbed his cell phone and sent a text message to Greg and Morgan, sending them to check it out.

"Now that we have one name, I'm going to see if anyone's reported Devin Nolan missing," Finlay said as she rushed off.

"Thanks you guys."

Henry followed Hodges out of the room.

Nick hit a speed dial number on his phone. "Conrad, I need to find State Patrolman Lieutenant Derek Schultz. He arrested the man in the morgue." Nick grabbed a notepad and jotted the information down. "Thanks." He hung up, grabbed the paper, and headed out to talk to the officer who arrested Devin Nolan six weeks ago.

* * *

><p><strong>July 9<strong>

He felt like he was inside an oven. When he tried to move his arm and couldn't, D.B remembered he was still in a nightmare. He opened his eyes, seeing blue sky through the skylights. Sunlight streamed through them, heating the top of the warehouse.

He looked up at the I.V. pole. The bags weren't empty but the pump had shut off. Just like the man had promised. He closed his eyes for a moment when a wave of dizziness swept through his head. He opened his eyes and tugged at the wrist cuffs a couple of times, but they weren't coming loose by force.

Working his hip closer to his hand, he was able to reach his fingers into his right pocket and pull out his Swiss Army knife. It took work to get the blade open. Arching his hand just right he was able to push the blade against the cuff. The awkward bending immediately signaled this was going to lead to a cramped hand, but he'd rather have cramped hand rather than die from dehydration.

D.B. began sawing at the cuff. The tough material proved to be resistant against the sharp blade, but the marks the blade left lifted his hope that resistance wouldn't last. He focused his attention on cutting himself free, and away from his real fear of dying for something he had nothing to do with.

* * *

><p>Greg stopped the SUV in front of a farmhouse. He and Morgan sat for a few minutes to take in the slowly deteriorating homestead.<p>

The house had very small patches of paint on the sundried and sand blasted wood. It might have been white once, but it was hard to really tell. The front steps sagged and looked dangerous to be on. Only two of the windows were broken out, which was surprising considering the remote location of the house – or maybe that's why there were only two broken.

The barn had no paint left on it. It sagged in the middle and was leaning. Eventually it would collapse into rubble, be buried by the sand or rot away, and leave the house alone to remind the desert humans had once been here.

Crime scene tape had been placed over the doors of the house and barn, but now it fluttered in the light breezes that blew across the desert.

"The mummified body was found here?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah. In the barn over there."

"I'll take the barn."

"Okay. Let me know if you find him."

"Ditto."

The two got out, grabbed their kits, and split up to see if they could find answers about why the suicide man had kidnapped D.B., or if luck was on their side, their supervisor himself.

Greg walked up the steps of the house and stopped to pull on a pair of gloves. He pushed the broken crime scene tape out of his way and walked inside.

To his surprise the house was considerably cooler than the 108 outside. He sat his kit down at the door, turned on his flashlight, and began walking through the house. He found fingerprint dust throughout the house, and voids were prints had been lifted for examination.

His search ended in the kitchen at the back and left him feeling more frustrated. Not only had this place been picked clean of any evidence by the previous CSI, but there was no sign anyone had been here since and no place to hide D.B.

He headed back to the SUV. While he waited for Morgan, he decided to pull up the case attached to this address. Maybe there were answers in there.

#

In the barn, Morgan didn't have any better luck. She found a couple parts and tools hanging on the wall. She spotted shoe prints in the dirt floor, leading over to a stall at the back of the barn. At eye level the stall had old gnaw marks from animals chewing on the wood, but it was what was below eye level that caught her attention.

Morgan squatted and sat her kit beside her. She reached a gloved hand out and ran it down the smooth spot on one side of a post. Someone had rubbed on it for a while, long enough to smooth and polish the wood. She looked around her for evidence of who, but the place had been picked clean by the CSI before her. She stood up, frustrated.

"MORGAN!" Greg called.

She picked up her kit and headed back to the SUV. Greg had the vehicle running and she was greeted by a blast of cool air when she climbed inside. She noticed he had a laptop wedged between his stomach and steering wheel.

"Nothing in the house?"

"No. The previous CSI picked it clean." He looked up at her. "The mummified woman they found out here was Devin Nolan's wife. Nick talked to the officer and he said when they wouldn't let Devin see her body, he punched the officer. The officer persuaded the D.A. to drop the charges because he knew the guy was just reacting grief and how his wife had died."

Morgan sat back in her seat. "Okay. Now what?"

Greg looked at his laptop. "We gotta back. I found some other things in this case file that might help us, but Nick wanted me to talk about it with everyone."

Greg closed his laptop and sat it behind his seat. He slipped the SUV into gear and turned around to head back to Las Vegas.

"He's sure calm about all this – almost like he doesn't care."

"Who?"

"Nick."

"He cares, and he is not calm."

"He's acting like it."

"Morgan, he doesn't have time to act like this is bothering him, or that he cares, but I know he's having a hard time with this. I'm sure the way this happened is digging up his past."

"What past?"

Greg didn't answer her question. "Just don't give him a hard time, okay? He's being brave for us, but the wrong word and he'll rip your head off.

She couldn't argue because she had never seen Nick acting so calm and so reactive before. As for herself, she was angry. Angry that they were wasting time sifting through evidence and getting no closer to finding D.B. Despite her anger, she knew better than to let it get the better of her, and that the evidence was all they had to find him.

* * *

><p>The CSI stood around the evidence table as Greg revealed what he'd found.<p>

"…that was nine years ago," Greg told them, "but six weeks ago some college students found that abandon farm and one of them found the mummified body in the barn. Police were called and at the time they were able to get fingerprints and dental records – she was Angelica Nolan, wife of Devin Nolan. The young woman is the daughter of Nolan and his wife, but there is no mention of a son in the case file. I still can't figure out how this woman's son became involved in any of this."

Nick shook his head. "It wasn't like Girssom to promise bringing home a kidnapped victim."

"He clearly felt he could, or he wouldn't have," Sara said, defending her husband's integrity.

"And he couldn't have known the kidnapper would shoot himself when he was caught," Finlay said. "That's not something most kidnappers do."

"Maybe you weren't there when D.B.'s kidnapper killed himself?" Nick angrily snapped, "Or how about when mine killed himself?"

His outburst of anger surprised all of them. The team watched him struggle to regain his composure in the heavy silence that followed.

In those minutes Morgan realized what Greg had meant by Nick's past bothering him on this case, and why he was acting like he didn't care about D.B. He really was putting on a brave face for the team, when inside he was being torn up by memories of a very similar situation that nearly killed him.

"I'm sorry," Nick finally said, "That was uncalled for. I'm sorry."

Finlay nodded. "We're all worried, you're not alone. No harm done."

Regaining his calm, Nick moved on with getting his team back out to find D.B. "Somehow, somewhere, this man is connected to Devin and his daughter, not just Angelica. All of their deaths wouldn't have driven him to this if he wasn't. Finlay, Sara, check out the Nolan's residence. Greg, go talk to the CSI and M.E. who recovered the woman's body from the barn, see if they can tell us anything or recognize the man."

They three left with their orders.

"What should I do?" Morgan asked.

"Start calling funeral homes. Robbins said the wife was buried for a while, so we might be able to find something there. Also see if there is any death record for Devin Nolan and his daughter. And find the father of her baby, too."

She nodded and left.

Nick pulled up the Angelica Nolan case, and he started through the photographs on the hunt for anything that might help. He suddenly stopped and backed up a couple photographs. The evidence marker in the photograph focused his attention. There were lines drawn in the dirt. They were faint and difficult to see. The CSI must have known that because the camera had been angled so that the flash lit up the edges. The woman had left a message, probably her last one as she died: _I love you all. Take care of one another._

The message caused Nick's hope to erode a little more. If D.B.'s kidnapper saw this, it probably started his downward spiral to this crime. And possibly his supervisor's death.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

**July 10**

The Nolan estate was massive. The 13 bedroom, two story mansion, sat on 10 acres of lush green grass surrounded by palm trees, hedges, gardens, and an impressive stone fence.

Upon arriving at the address, Sara and Finlay were forced to impatiently wait for the D.A. to get a warrant for the code to open the impressive wrought iron gates blocking entrance to the property, only to find that they had to have a code to open either the front or back door also. It left the two CSI and the two officers escorting them on the steps, watching the rising sun slowly brighten the sky from the east. As the dim light turned to gray, Sara's patience reached a quick end.

"Maybe we should start on the perimeter," she suggested to the officers and Finlay. "I saw a pool, there may be a pool house, or a shed at the back."

She didn't get a reply from anyone. She looked at the two officers. They didn't look motivated to move away from the front door. She turned her head to Finlay, prepared to ask why she didn't want to do the suggestion. She stopped when she found Finlay staring intently at something across the lawn.

"Julie?" Sara asked.

Finlay didn't answer.

"_Julie_."

Finlay looked at her. "Huh?"

"We should start on the perimeter while we wait."

Finlay looked back at the spot that had her attention. She got up and walked to the edge of the driveway, staring across the grass again.

"What's wrong?" Sara asked her.

She turned back to Sara. "Tell me what's wrong with this property."

"It costs more than my one bedroom condo?" an officer answered.

Finlay almost smiled. "No."

Sara looked around them. Suddenly she saw what Finlay saw.

"The grass is almost knee high. All the shrubs and trees haven't been trimmed. There are flower beds with dead flowers. This place hasn't been taken care of in weeks. What about it?"

Finlay nodded, looking around them again. "How long did Robbins think Nolan had been dead?"

"It was inconclusive because he was frozen. He guessed perhaps three, maybe four days."

"It had to have been longer. With a place like this, Devin Nolan would have had maybe a dozen gardeners and grounds keepers. But look at this place, Sara! Nobody has been here to take care of it in weeks! The flowers are dead because no one has been here to check on the water system. That's bluegrass, not Bermuda, and the desert is the worst place for it to be because it needs so much water. But even with the sprinklers working, it would grow slow. Since it's probably at least sixteen inches now, no one has mowed it for two or three weeks. And where is the house staff? Why is there _no one_ here?"

"Maybe they guy killed them too."

"I don't think he did. I'm sure at least some of the staff here has friends or families that would have reported them missing. Even if it was only six reports filed, it would have been flagged. When we learned that all of those people were last know or seen here, we would have noticed no staff or even found the kidnapper, here. As careful as he's been so far, there is no way he would have let us even accidently stumble into his plans."

Sara was about to rebuttal when her cell phone rang. She answered it instead, grateful for the distraction from the frustrating conversation. "Hey Conrad"

'_The security company finally came through. Ready for the code?_' he asked.

She trotted up to the keypad by the door. "Go."

'_Alpha-Juliet-6-9-4-November._'

She punched in the code and the door clicked. She tried the handle and it opened.

"We're in. We'll let you know if we find anything." Sara hung up the call.

The four entered the house together, coming into an impressive foyer. They stopped there, all four trying to decide on a plan of action, or expecting one of the others to come up with one.

"We'll start securing the house," one of the officers told the CSI.

One man headed off to their left, while the second started up the stairs.

Sara looked up when something sparkled across her face. Above her was a glass dome and a large chandelier suspended under it. The morning sunlight hit the crystals on the chandelier, dancing light around the room. She looked down when Finlay walked away from her side.

Finlay stopped at a table, pulled on a glove, and swiped her finger across the table. She held the finger up for Sara to see the light coat of dust on it.

"It would take a couple weeks for this to accumulate," Finlay pointed out.

Sara knew she was right, but she was irritated by the facts. None of them got them any closer to finding D.B., and that made her heave a heavy sigh.

"What?"

"The last thing we need is more mystery. We are never going to find D.B. if all we keep getting are questions and no answers!"

Finlay walked up to Sara, looking her in the eye. "I'm not trying to add more unanswered questions, just figure out where my friend is so I can save his life."

Sara looked away with an involuntary head shake. "You want the top or bottom?"

Finlay chuckled at the unintentional joke, which made Sara smile.

"Top," Finlay said and headed up the stairs.

Sara went the direction the police officer had disappeared.

* * *

><p>Finlay's search of the upstairs didn't answer any questions, let alone give a clue where the man had hidden D.B.<p>

While the rooms weren't as clean as they should be, there was no sign of a struggle or blood that had been cleaned up. It was as if the Nolan family had one day decided to disappear, only to resurface in some stranger's house across town as the victims of a kidnapper using them to lure D.B. into the field.

She walked into a study that looked as neat but unkempt for as the rest of the house. However, she was rewarded with a laptop on the desk waiting for its owner to return to use it. She sat down in the chair and tapped a key. The computer lit up, and to her surprise, there was no password on it. The desktop had a variety of icons for games, Microsoft Office, and applications she was unfamiliar with. She opened Outlook. The screen came up and immediately emails began to pour in. She skimmed through them. One caught her eye with the subject of: _Fall Tuition is due_.

She opened the email and carefully read it, looking for anything that told her the identity of the sender. This person wrote about his college semester, but no school was mentioned. He had an internship at the hospital, but didn't mention the hospital name. The writer told about a professor he couldn't stand because he felt the woman was judgmental and only liked the sexy girls – not that the writer complained, the writer liked the sexy girls too. The email ended reminding Devin that once again tuition time had come, and could the writer get a hundred extra to buy new jeans since all his had holes in them. The person signed the email, JP.

She looked at the sender. Outlook had the person labeled as 'That kid.' There was nothing malicious in the email that hinted this person wanted to harm the Nolan family, but her instincts told her the writer was the kidnapper. She shut down the computer and prepared it to take back to the lab. She had to hunt down JP, That Kid, with the only identification she had so far, PercyJ1975 .

"Hey, Finlay," an officer said when he stopped in the door.

"Yeah?"

"There's someone here you might want to talk to her. She's looking for Devin Nolan for her last paycheck."

Finlay followed him back down to the foyer. A dark skinned woman stood just inside the door, watching them descend the stairs toward her. She was in her thirties, a little shorter than Finlay, and didn't seem the least bit concerned there was an officer in the house.

"Hello. I'm CSI Julie Finlay. Can I help you?"

When she spoke, her accent hinted she was Native American. "I've come for my last check."

"Why did Mr. Nolan let you go? And when?"

"Why does it matter? I came here to get what I'm owed."

"Ma'am, Devin Nolan is dead. You may be the last person that saw him when he fired you."

"I know he's dead, I found him three weeks ago. I just want my last check."

"You know Devin Nolan is dead?"

"Yeah. Jerry found him out in the gardener's shed and we all went out to see while he called the police. Even Eva, but then she had to be taken to the hospital. Miscarried I was told. A friend of the family was here, though, so he took care of everything. Course, then the asshole fired everyone."

"You reported Devin Nolan's suicide?"

"I just said that, didn't I?"

"Did a coroner show up to take his body?"

"I don't know. The guy sent everyone home for the day after we found him."

"Did the police show up before you left?"

"I don't know. He said they were coming."

"And this person fired all everyone?"

"Yeah, the entire staff, everyone three weeks ago." The woman's voice rose some with her irritation and her angry glare intensified. "I want my check."

"How long ago was it when Devin committed suicide?"

"Four weeks ago, a couple days after he got out of jail."

Finlay fished a notepad and pen from a pocket, and held it out to the woman. "Could I get your name and phone number in case I have any other questions?"

"I just want my damned check."

"I understand that, but Devin and Eva are dead, and this family friend may know something about why or how they ended up that way."

The woman paled. She put her hands on her chest, retreating a partial step. "Eva is dead too?"

"You didn't know that?"

"No. No! Eva was alive when we were fired. I mean, she was a mess since they found her mother, and after her miscarriage, but she was alive."

"Do you know who the father of Eva's baby was?"

"No. All we ever knew was she had married someone right after high school, but then she came back here pregnant and without a husband."

"Could I still get your name and phone number? As soon as I can find out about your check, I'll contact you."

The woman took the notepad and jotted her name and phone number down. She almost threw it at Finlay and stormed out. Finlay looked down at the name, but wasn't really seeing it. Sara's words echoed in her mind: _We are never going to find D.B. if all we keep getting are questions and no answers!_

* * *

><p>Sara walked into the kitchen, impressed by the size. Three of her own kitchens could fit in this one. The granite counters were polished but dusty. Everything was in order, in designated places, and undisturbed. There were two double door refrigerators along one wall. She walked over to one and opened it. It wasn't a side by side like she had expected. It was a full refrigerator and empty. The second one was the same model, and only had a pint of curdled milk. She walked around to a hallway. There was a door at the end, a door to her left, and a freezer door on her right.<p>

Outside the freezer door the temperature read zero. _Why would a house keep their freezer that cold?_ She remembered that Robbins told them Dean and his daughter, Eva, had been frozen. Was this where they had been kept?

Sara opened the door. There was half a package of pizza rolls and a pint of ice cream, but the rest of the large freezer was empty.

Well, not quite…

She walked over to spots where blood had frozen to the floor. This one had voids and she could imagine Eva lying here with her bloody wrists. On the far side of the freezer there was dirt on the floor. Sara was convinced the kidnapper had stored the bodies had been stored before they were moved to the house across town.

But how did the kidnapper ahold of the Nolan family? And why did he store them before moving them and using them as a lure? She was more frustrated, because she just added more questions to the long list and he was running out of time…

* * *

><p>He couldn't feel how swollen his tongue was, because he didn't have enough saliva to swallow. He tried wetting his lips every few minutes, but there wasn't enough moisture. D.B. fought back fatigue with determination to free himself.<p>

He looked down at the wrist restraint and wanted to moan. After half a day and night of sawing at it, he'd only cut an inch into the restraint.

His hand cramped suddenly, making him stop. It was throbbing as bad as his other arm. D.B. looked where the I.V. was inserted in his other arm. Red streaks had begun to form around where the 'needle' was inserted in his arm, indicating a growing infection.

He curled his fingers tight around his pocket knife and bent his hand to start sawing again.

There were no warning symptoms when the first seizure struck. It caused his hand to grip the knife; as soon as the convulsions began, the knife slipped from his hand and skidded out of sight.

He lost consciousness by the time the seizure subsided.

* * *

><p>The morgue doors opened and Robbins looked up from his computer. A gurney with body in a bag entered followed by David pushing it. He moved it to the center of the room and then turned to Robbins.<p>

"Suicide," David quickly explained.

Robbins nodded once and went back to work.

"Any news on D.B.?" David asked.

Solemnly Robbins shook his head. David came up to him, pulling exam gloves on while he spoke. "That's been the talk all night out there since Conrad finally sent out a press release about the kidnapping."

"He's hoping to get a lead on this case. So far they've gotten answer to questions that lead to more questions. And it turns out the man thought D.B. was Grissom."

"What man thought he was Grissom?"

Robbins looked up at him, surprised at first. Then he realized David hadn't been there when the suicide happened the night before, nor had he probably had time to hear about it. He had been single handedly handling night and day shift while Robbins and the day shift M.E. worked with the bodies to find anything about them that hinted to where D.B. might be held.

"A man came in here and said he blamed Grissom for the death Devin Nolan's wife, Angelica Nolan. Apparently her kidnapper killed himself without telling anyone where she was and she died in the desert from dehydration. We don't know how the man was attached to the family."

"Devin Nolan committed suicide four weeks ago. Was this some guy claiming to be him?"

"He did… _You_ signed his death certificate? Then where is it?"

"I filed it with the clerk that afternoon when I got in. Just like I always do."

"Did you personally file it?"

"Well, no, I sent several with our intern. Just like you do."

"So where is the body, David? Are you sure it was ruled a suicide?"

"Yes, and yes. A swing CSI covering for Finlay was on the scene when I got there and we agreed it was a suicide. We didn't have a funeral home yet, so I brought the body here. Not even an hour later, the family lawyer showed up and asked to have the body released to him so the family could prepare it for a kosher burial that night."

"He said Dean Nolan was Jewish?"

"No. He never said he was Jewish, although I assumed that if the family wanted to do a kosher burial."

"Did he have the release forms? The right paperwork?"

"Yes. I filed all of the paper work. It was filled out correctly and signed. I didn't have any reason to question it."

In his gut, Robbins knew exactly who this 'lawyer' was.

He got up and walked over to the cold drawers, opened a door, and pulled out the drawer. He flipped the sheet back from the suicide man's face.

"Is this the lawyer?"

David walked over and nodded. "Yes. That's him. He was killed too?"

"No, David." Robbins fished his cell phone out to text Nick this information. "This is the guy that kidnapped D.B. and then committed suicide in the CSI lobby. I _doubt_ he was ever a lawyer."

* * *

><p>Morgan walked into the cool, dim lit building of Kraft &amp; Sussman Funeral Home. The building was tastefully decorated and cool. The very building seemed to be requesting nothing but the utmost respect from anyone who entered. Morgan spotted a sign pointing to an office and followed the arrows. She found a woman sitting at a desk just inside the door, busily filling out paperwork by hand.<p>

"Excuse me," Morgan said.

She looked up and smiled.

"Hi. I'm CSI Morgan Brody." She showed her I.D. badge. "Las Vegas PD."

"How may I help you?"

"I believe your home handled the burial of Angelica Nolan, wife of Devin Nolan."

"Oh. Yes. We did."

"I checked with the cemetery she was buried at and was told she was exhumed two weeks ago. Can you tell me why that was?"

"Her husband made the request through their family lawyer. Apparently there had been a change of plans and they were going to transport her remains back east to her family plot."

"But… I thought Angelica Nolan was a Nevada native?"

The woman shrugged. "All I know is the lawyer came with the paperwork he needed for the transport. The next day, a transport van showed up for the body."

Morgan pulled her cell phone from her pocket and pulled up the post-death picture of the suicide man. She showed it to the woman.

"Was this man either the lawyer or driver?"

"The driver. He must have been related to the lawyer though. They looked related."

"What do you mean?"

"He was older. A gray beard and hair."

"Are you certain they weren't the same person?"

"Yes. I spoke to both of them. The lawyer was very professional, polite, refined; how'd you'd expect a lawyer to be. That van driver cussed about every little thing."

Morgan forced a smile. _Of course they were. The guy knew he better than to act the same way. Why did this guy have to be so damned smart?_

"Thank you for your time." Morgan left, walking quickly back to her SUV. She wasn't going to return with information Nick would be happy with.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

"…and, and there's three bodies. They're… Someone beat in their faces! There's blood everywhere!"

Nick glowered at the computer screen as the speakers replayed the 911 recording of the call reporting the three bodies at the house. It made him angry because he knew the voice – it was the suicide man. He didn't care why he had reported the bodies – it was the end of a long string of 911 calls that had led D.B. to the crime scene, and allowed the man to lure him into a room alone.

"I don't think listening to that recording is going to get you anywhere, Nick."

He turned his head. Ecklie stood behind him. He looked as stressed as everyone else did. Was he in the same suit as yesterday?

Without really caring about the answer, Nick turned away from him. He tapped the stop button with the mouse.

"He planned this whole thing," Nick said.

"There's no way he could have known D.B., or Grissom he thought, was going to be at the crime scene. It was just chance."

"No. It wasn't."

"Nick—"

"Conrad, I thought that at first too, and it was bothering me. He was after the man he _thought_ was Grissom, so how did he get lucky enough to get that very person right where he wanted him? Since it's now forty-eight hours and no one has a clue where to start looking for D.B, I went back to the recording. Then I remembered that when I showed up that night, Maggie was exhausted—"

"Maggie, the day shift supervisor?"

Nick nodded, continuing, "She said they had been running all day because they kept getting calls about prank crime scenes. They had been going all day."

"The officers responding should have been able to clear that up. I didn't know that was going on."

"That's just the thing, Conrad," Nick turned to him. "He staged nearly a hundred crime scenes all over town. Everywhere. He put corpses or body parts all over town. Except that most of the corpses turned out to be dummies and blow up dolls, and the body parts were from pigs, dogs, and other animals. He _knew_ how to get CSI on the scene, and he did this all day. He intentionally caused a backlog and what's worse, he knew when to stop, so that the graveyard would be overwhelmed and that last call would be given to D.B."

"That's all too coincidental."

"And for all that coincidence, he still managed to kidnap D.B. and leave him for dead! And he intentionally left evidence so that we had to waste precious time sifting through it, looking for any shred of information that tells us where he took D.B. _And we're running out of time_!"

Nick sat down on a stool and leaned on his legs. He inhaled and exhaled a long breath.

"We found you, Nick. We'll find him."

"Barely found me." Nick shook his head. "Luck found me."

"Luck didn't find you. The evidence did. And it's going to find D.B. too."

Nick held his tongue and shook his head instead.

"We found Sara and Morgan with evidence, too. We have a good track record of finding our people and bringing them home." Conrad turned away and left. "Don't give up on D.B. He needs you to stay focused and positive, Nick."

Nick closed his tired eyes, just for a moment, whispering a prayer. With no evidence, no clues, it was all he could think to do.

* * *

><p>He couldn't remember when he stopped feeling hot and coldness began creeping through him. He didn't know how many hours he had laid on the cot, forcing his mind to stay focused on his verbal report. D.B. had long forgotten why it was so important to stay awake, but it was increasing difficult. His eyes kept drifting to sunlight streaming through a broken skylight, where dust swirled and danced through the light.<p>

He didn't even notice how fast he was breathing as his heart raced and his body was doing everything it could to continue functioning on a quickly depleting supply of fluids.

"D.B."

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Are you coming?"

He smiled a little. "Look… The sun on the dust."

"It is beautiful."

He turned his head, smiling at his wife, Allyson. She stood a few feet from him, smiling back.

"Nothing like you."

She only smiled.

"Come home."

"I will. I just have to finish my report."

"It can wait. Come home."

His eyes drooped closed and then a seizure hit.

* * *

><p>Finlay ran down the hall, passed another hall, spotted Nick and Sara, and ran back to them.<p>

"His name is Jackson Perry," Finlay told them as she came to a stop. She handed Nick a photocopy of the suicide man's Maryland driver's license. "He was seven months from graduating from John Hopkins with his medical doctorate."

"That's a start," Nick said.

"Oh, that's _just_ the start. Remember he said that Angelica was his mother, before he shot himself?"

They did.

"Angelica is from Maryland and before she moved here with her family, she had a child when she was seventeen, allegedly from her twenty-nine year old boyfriend. Both denied it so he never went to jail. But when she left, he stayed in Maryland with the son. When she moved here, she met Devin when she was hired as his assistant. The two married and ten years later they had a daughter. Sometime during all this, she reconnected with her son in Maryland. Then his dad, Arnold Perry, died from a heart attack right after Jackson turned eighteen. His step-dad Devin Nolan stepped in and supported Jackson, getting him into John Hopkins with his connections – not that Jackson needed it. He was brilliant, in the top of his class."

Finlay took a breath and continued, "I got in touch with his adviser and he said Jackson told him police found his mother's body six weeks ago and he took a leave and returned to Las Vegas. His adviser hadn't heard from him since and he'd missed mid-terms, which was not like him."

"I think he might have been in the house when Devin and his half-sister killed themselves," Sara said.

"I think he saw them both do it and had to put the blame on someone," Nick said. "Both of you go back to Devin's house and look for anything to do with Jackson."

The two left. Nick turned, finding Allyson standing at the end of the hall. His heart sank.

"I waited and…" A few tears fell down her face. "Please tell me you know something, Nick."

He shook his head. "No."

She burst into tears. Nick walked over and held her.

* * *

><p><strong>July 11<strong>

Morgan sat back in the office chair, dropped her head and pulled her hands down on her neck. The stretch felt good, but it was short lived. She looked back up at the screen, which offered no information.

"Oh!" she heard Greg say from behind her.

Since Finlay had brought Devin's laptop back to the lab, Greg had been trying to squeeze any information he could about where to look for D.B. Now he was on his feet, staring wide-eyed at the screen.

"What?"

He almost smiled. "I have a list of Devin's properties in Las Vegas. All of them!"

She jumped up and ran over. Her hope threatened to fizzle when she looked at the list.

"Forty-two properties?" She looked at Greg. "It's one hundred and nine degrees outside and it's the third day, Greg. How are we supposed to figure out where to even start?"

He sat down and copied the Excel file onto the lab server. Greg wheeled himself in front of a lab computer and pulled the information into a program. It brought up a map with 'pins' for each address imported.

"So first we eliminate houses without basements. He couldn't have put D.B. upstairs because someone might see in and a basement would be too cool."

He filtered out those addresses and seven 'pins' disappeared.

"Then take out any property that has people on it regularly, like this medical clinic, strip club…"

Twelve disappeared.

"Now, anything that is in an area with high rate of homeless we'll take out, because they've probably already taken over the place and he couldn't have hidden a person there."

Eight more removed.

"That leaves us with fifteen."

"And what if you're wrong?" she demanded.

"He's not," Nick said behind her.

She turned. He was staring at the screen. Or more accurately, glaring at it. For the second time in days she realize she was seeing that anger Greg had warned her was hidden behind Nick's calm.

"Greg, divide up those addresses and sent them to each of our phones." As he turned and left, Nick dialed a number. He added, "Make sure to tell Sara and Julie I want at least two officers with them. I doubt Jackson made it easy for us to find or get to D.B."

Nick lifted his phone to his ear in the hall and began talking. Morgan turned back to watching Greg divide, and with luck, conquer Jackson's meticulous murder plot.

* * *

><p>The night hadn't brought cool relief to the desert. The baked sand kept the temperature in the upper nineties.<p>

Sandwiched between four squad cars, Nick steered his SUV toward a group dark buildings of an abandoned refinery. The convoy stopped at the locked gate. Nick watched an officer in the front car got out, pulled a pair of bolt cutters from the trunk, and cut the chain. He shoved the gate back and got back in the car. They drove onto the property, parking in a line with their headlights shining on the buildings. Nick grabbed his Maglite before he joined the officers. With a quick confer, they broke off in teams of three to search the buildings.

Nick and two officers headed for last building on the property, walking through a wide door. Glancing back he saw that the door looked across the desert, and the night sky stretched on forever.

As they entered their shoes crunched on something. Nick lit up the ground. They were walking across a dirty cement with broken plastic everywhere. He crouched for a closer look at the plastic. It was cheap plastic that had been sun bleached. He shone his light around him and couldn't see anything missing this type of covering. He started searching again. The search turned up no person – living or dead. Over the officer's radios, Nick heard the other officers reporting the same where they were searching.

His hope sank. He'd also received texts from the other CSI, reporting they hadn't found D.B. at the properties they'd searched. He had one last property to search, and he wasn't feeling very optimistic about that property. Was Jackson really going to beat them? Was he really going to get what he wanted, even if it was killing someone for something they hadn't been involved with?

"They have nothing too?" Nick asked.

"Yeah," one of them answered.

"Let's get to the last address."

The three walked back toward the door, crunching across the plastic. Nick glanced at the wall to his left and noticed something on the floor that looked out of place. He stopped to shine his light on the object.

Nick jumped when something overhead crashed. He and the two officers immediately aimed their flashlights where the noise had come from. It took Nick a moment to realize this building had a mezzanine in it – it looked like some kind of equipment had come through the holes in the mezzanine floor but had since been removed. A catwalk ran through the rafters of the building from the mezzanine to various platforms around the building.

As Nick swung his light back toward the object the light flashed across something. Nick moved the beam back and stared at the Swiss Army Knife on the ground. He walked over and picked it up. The blade was open and it had not been here long enough to be covered with dirt or rust. Nick looked back up, feeling his hope rising.

"He's up there. See if you can find a way up there, guys."

The three began searching for a way up. They came to the realization at the same time. All the ladders that had been cut off well above their heads. The pieces sat on the floor around the building, their cut ends sparkling in their flashlights from fresh, clean cuts. Nick was certain that D.B. was in the mezzanine here.

"One of you go get my SUV and bring it over here. And someone call fire and paramedics!"

The officers left together, but within minutes one came back with the other officer. One drive Nick's SUV into the building and he directed him to back up to the wall under a cut-off ladder closest to the mezzanine. He slipped his flashlight into his vest pocket upside down and climbed onto the roof of the SUV. The officers aimed their flashlights on the ladder for Nick.

Nick sneered at the ladder when he realized that even standing on his SUV, he was at least seven feet short. He couldn't reach last rung of the ladder. He knew he should wait for fire to arrive with a ladder to reach it, but there was no way he was doing that. He had to get to D.B.

"I need a boost up," Nick called down to the officers.

One climbed up and boosted Nick up. After a couple tries, he was able to grab the last rung and pull himself onto the ladder. He climbed up to the catwalk and was about to reach his hand out to grab a railing when he noticed a very faint green light. He pulled his flashlight from his pocket and shined it down the catwalk.

The catwalk was wired with trip wires and bombs. Jackson had even planned on them finding the right location! Nick wasn't letting that stop him from saving his supervisor.

"CALL THE BOMB SQUAD!" Nick yelled. He looped an arm around a ladder rung. He was waiting right here, as close as he could to where he knew D.B. was, until help arrived. "We're almost to you, D.B.," Nick called out. "Hold on, man. We're right here. Hang on."

There was no answer from the dark mezzanine.

* * *

><p>The first sound that his tired mind connected with the soft beeping of an EKG, followed by someone talking quietly in the distance. D.B. moved his hand, feeling cloth over and under it. He moved his arm so he could close his fingers around the cloth under him.<p>

He tried to wet his mouth and could this time, but just barely.

"Hey," he heard Finlay say. A hand picked up his hand, warming his cold fingers.

He opened his eyes, staring at Finlay's smile before seeing her face.

"Hey," D.B. softly said.

She smiled some more. "Welcome back."

"Where's Allyson?"

"I made her go home and get some rest. She's been here for days."

"Days?"

"You've been in here for two weeks."

"Did you catch the guy?"

"He committed suicide at the lab."

"Why?"

"It's a long story and there's plenty of time for it. He didn't make it very easy to find you or get to you, but we did. You're CSI found you and brought you home." She rubbed his shoulder.

D.B. closed his eyes. "He thought I was Grissom."

"Yes, he did."

D.B. thought about that. "I think that's a compliment."

She chuckled a little and he smiled a little.

His eyes drooped shut. Sleep came easy knowing he was safe, and he'd beaten death.

This time.

_The End_


End file.
